


ONE: PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME

by roswyrm



Series: AND REMEMBER! BAD THINGS: WILL HAPPEN [1]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Monster Hunters, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Cuddling & Snuggling, Ghosts, Ghouls, Hospitalization, Love Confessions, M/M, Major Character Injury, Painkillers, first chap is bad things second chap is fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-30 15:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19406206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm
Summary: Written for Anon and the Bad Things Happen Bingo!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay good news bad news, bad news first: i'm gonna have so much fun writing these prompt fills, guys.
> 
> good news: i'm also gonna fix all of them, just later, so dw. i legally cannot have this many angsty things written without fixing them. i just Can't thats not how tings Work. anyway, enjoy, zolf is a ghost and hamid is a medium and they hunt monsters together

There are good things and bad things about being corporeal. Being corporeal mean Hamid can set his hand on top of Zolf’s when he’s driving, and he can hook his ankle around Zolf’s under the table, and he can set his head on Zolf’s shoulder when he’s tired. Zolf doesn’t know if these count as good or bad, because every time Hamid touches him, the little voice curled up where his heart should be whispers _drain him dry._ Zolf steadfastly refuses to listen. Being corporeal also means that monsters can slash through him, so Zolf usually keeps himself intangible when they go hunting.

Hamid’s hand slips right through Zolf’s own as he says, “Hello,” to the advancing ghoul. The ghoul growls, low in its throat, and Zolf looks between it and the tiny medium extending a hand toward it. “Don’t worry; we’re not going to hurt you.” There are good things and bad things about being incorporeal, and the worst thing is when the ghoul screams forward, Zolf is too distracted by the heat of something Being through his fingertips to move in time. The worst thing is when Hamid goes flying backwards, claw-marks set deep in his gut. The worst thing is when the ghoul rattles toward the medium, and Zolf doesn’t make himself into a shield for his flesh-and-blood idiot fast enough, and the ghoul passes right through him to get to Hamid.

It isn’t big, or heartbroken, or tear-stained. It just is. “No,” Zolf says, sharp and _auditory,_ and the ghoul whips around to stare at him, awful teeth chattering and hellish chest caving in. Zolf can feel himself getting angry, the kind of anger off limits to those who can Be, the kind of anger reserved for spirits going off the rails. _“No,”_ Zolf says again, quieter but even more real, desperation and rage and grief building in his chest and the ghoul skitters toward him, one more morsel of prey, one more thing to _kill,_ and Zolf reaches out. He wraps one spectral hand around the ghoul’s throat, and the whisper where his heart should be grows to a roar and Zolf _drains it dry._

The ghoul shrivels up and dies with a horrible, echoing scream.

Zolf feels _different._

Like a million different nerve endings just fired for the first time in two and a half decades, like when someone Being touches him and the warmth seeps through him, like unadulterated power surging through veins that aren’t there anymore. Zolf hasn’t ever drained something _dead,_ always too worried about being a truer monster, but he can see himself reflected in the shattered glass of the house’s window, and he is _visible._ He doesn’t need this much lifeforce to survive, but if he drains enough– why hasn’t he done this before?

That’s– that isn’t rhetorical, Zolf has a reason. Zolf doesn’t drain things dry like this because… _because…_

because of Hamid.

Oh, shit, _Hamid._

Zolf can feel himself flickering as the heady feeling of power drunkenness flees him, and he drops down to his knees next to Hamid. “Shit,” he manages, and it’s too loud, too auditory, covering up Hamid’s shaky breathing, “shit, no no no, c’mon, you’re okay.” Hamid’s breathing is shallow, and the claw marks across his torso are so _deep._ Zolf doesn’t have to focus on making himself tangible, he just is, and he clutches at Hamid’s face. “Hey,” he says softly, “hey, Hamid, you’re okay, look at me.” Hamid shudders, blinking his eyes open like it’s a herculean effort, and Zolf can’t cry but _god_ if he doesn’t want to. “I’m gonna go get help, okay?”

Hamid gives a small whimper of protest, hand coming up to grasp at Zolf’s shoulder. His eyes are unfocused, but there’s the familiar light to them that’s always marked him as something a bit to the right of human, as someone who could see things no one else could. “Stay,” Hamid chokes, and god, that’s too much blood, there shouldn’t be so much blood trailing from his lips, “don’t wanna be alone.” Zolf wipes some of the blood from Hamid’s cheek where it dripped from the corner of his mouth.

Hamid’s clothes are rustling, the long blue jacket he bought from a charity shop that reminded Zolf of _something_ moving in some unknown wind. “I’m here,” Zolf says, and that reminds him of something too, something he doesn’t know, doesn’t remember, and Hamid smiles at him. More blood trickles through his lips, and Zolf wipes it away. “I’m here, Hamid, you’re okay. C’mon, you’re gonna… you can’t die, Lifesblood, you can’t, please don’t leave me. I can’t lose you, too.” Who else has he lost? His voice is so soft, so desperate, fury at the ghoul and grief for his medium howling in the empty space where his heart should be. “I love you,” Zolf says, and he can’t cry, but his face still feels hot and his eyes prick painfully, “you can’t leave me, you can’t die, _I love you.”_

“Oh, Zolf,” whispers Hamid, eyes fluttering shut, eyelashes settling long and dark on his cheeks, “I love you, too.” 

His breathing stops.


	2. ONE POINT FIVE: HAMID DOESN'T LEAVE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for me, myself, and the rest of the fluff goblins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy belated fathers day, knock-off taliesin jaffe

Zolf _screams,_ louder than the ghoul, loud enough that the window he’s still reflected in shatters. It’s an outpouring of something, and the wind from before is tinged with the salt air of the beach Zolf spent two decades drifting on, and it catches in Hamid’s chest for a brief second. Something picks Hamid up and _nothing fucking touches him,_ and his lungs feel full of seawater and the air around him is too cold and how dare this Empath try and steal away what is his— a Witch flicks open its lighter to burn a ward, to get rid of him, to _push him away from his Lifesblood, away from his Love,_ and Zolf stretches out a hand to _drain it dry,_ but Hamid, Hamid, Hamid. With his insistence that Zolf doesn't possess a body unless there was no soul in it, with his beaming smile when they managed to talk something down, with his Being so irrevocably wrapped up in the Being of others. Hamid would be _so disappointed in him._

Zolf snatches the day-old receipt out of Grizzop’s hand, and hisses when the ward sketched on it (probably with the sharpie that the witch keeps behind his ear) burns him. It flutters to the ground, and Zolf can feel the cold ocean air disappearing as he calms down, as his form flickers back to his usual self. Grizzop asks, “You alright now?” The way he asks it is wary; the drawn-out inflexion of a man checking to see if a dog is rabid before going to get the shotgun. Azu keeps running down the hall, out to the car, out to save Hamid from bleeding out on the dusty floor of a haunted house.

Vesseek leaps off their witch’s shoulder and pads over to him. Zolf kneels and scratches behind their ear, and the familiar purrs. Grizzop wrinkles his face up and says, “I’m gonna say something really weird, don’t get mad at me. You don’t look even a little like I thought you would.” Zolf looks up at him to find the witch meeting his eyes. Not looking somewhere above his familiar, not looking unfocused through Zolf’s forehead, but into Zolf’s eyes.

“I killed it,” Zolf says, head tilting toward the ghoul’s husk.

Grizzop startles a bit at his voice. Zolf doesn’t blame him; he hasn’t sounded this real in decades, even before he died. He doesn’t think, at least, who he was before this is… hazy at best. “Yeah,” Grizzop says, “I can see that.” His eyes don’t leave Zolf’s. They sit there in the silence, in the wreckage of any trust Zolf might have built, in the abandoned house where Hamid isn’t because Zolf doesn’t think he can look at his _(corpse)_ bloodied form without losing himself again. Vesseek sits down at Zolf’s feet and rests their chin on his knee. Zolf lets them, too busy trying to drown out the whisper that says _killer, monster, just like you were always going to be_ by taking in every detail of the shit haunted house they’re in. No more windows. Zolf took care of that. “You’re blue,” Grizzop says eventually. Zolf looks over from one of the boarded up windows with the wood rotting out of place to find the witch still staring. “Not like… special effect ghost blue, though. Like…”

Zolf meets his eyes unflinchingly when he finishes, “Like the ocean.” He wants to flinch. He should flinch. The sea harbours no ill will toward him, the sea cannot hate, but the sea is endless and destructive, and it will wear away your soul until all that is left of you is a husk. “Makes sense; I’m pretty sure I drowned.” _I’m pretty sure I went missing in the freezing water, and no one bothered to look all that hard,_ Zolf doesn’t say, but things are coming back, and he remembers the cold. Grizzop hums noncommittally. “Are you babysitting me?” Zolf asks, and it comes out more than a bit snappish.

Grizzop scoffs. “I guess so, yeah. I’m here to make sure you don’t go nuts and make this house haunted all over again.” Zolf ignores how that stings. Grizzop isn’t insulting him, only saying things how they are. It’s just sort of how the witch does things.

Zolf starts fading around four in the morning, and Grizzop needs to sleep, so Vesseek keeps watch, curled into the space between their witch’s knees and chest while glaring at Zolf. Zolf sits cross-legged on the dusty wooden floor next to the pair of them and tries to will Hamid into being okay from halfway across the town.

* * *

The nurse that leads him (leads Grizzop, really, but the witch is planning on leaving as soon as they get there) to the hospital room that Hamid is staying in has blonde hair in a braid down her back. It’s a good dye job, but Zolf can see the black roots if he floats high enough. (It’s familiar, but he doesn’t know why.) She stops outside the doorway and says, “He’s on painkillers, so he might be a bit out of it, but I’m sure he’d be happy to see you.” Zolf is more or less tangible, and he uses that tangibility to pick at the flaking plaster on the wall. He’s dead, and he shouldn’t be nervous because he doesn’t have _nerves,_ but Zolf does a lot of things that he shouldn’t.

“Right,” Grizzop says, bringing Zolf back to himself, “so I’ll just go in, then. Thanks.” The nurse gives him a thin-lipped smile and bustles off again. The witch watches her go, and Zolf hovers awkwardly by the door frame. (Hamid probably won’t want to see him. Zolf killed something, drained it dry in one sharp tug of its Being, and he didn’t save Hamid from its claws. Zolf told Hamid he loved him. And Hamid said it back, but did he mean it? Was it just blood loss? Hamid can’t love him, not really; he must have misunderstood.)

There’s the soft creaking of mattress springs from inside the room, and then Hamid asks, “Grizzop?” Grizzop takes a step to the side, giving the air next to Zolf’s head an expectant look, and Zolf cautiously moves into the doorway. Hamid’s face lights up. “Zolf!” He looks alright. The white blankets are settled in his lap, and Zolf can see the outline of bandages against his hospital gown, but his cheeks are flushed, and he looks alive. “You came! I knew you were going to come, y’know, but I was– come _here!_ Come be… coherent? No, the, the other one… corporation…”

“Corporeal?” Zolf hazards, and the medium beams.

“Corporeal,” Hamid agrees, “yes! Come be corporeal with me, I wanna hold you!” Grizzop manages to sound both amused and deeply disgusted at the same time, and Hamid stretches a hand out toward him. “You’re invited too, Grizzop! And Vesseek! You’re both very spiky, but you’re nice to pat.” 

Grizzop frowns, brings a hand up to his more-or-less shorn skull that Hamid rubs his hands over as soon as he manages to get permission, and then shakes his head. “We’ll be back soonish. Talk through your feelings, or I’ll banish your ghost again.” Hamid pouts at him for several seconds, even after the witch has already left down the hallway, and then he sighs dramatically and slumps into the bed, eyes closing.

Zolf floats closer, and he gets the feeling that if he had a heart, it would be thundering out of his chest. Hamid’s eyes flutter back open, and then he looks up at Zolf and giggles. “You’re so far away,” he laughs, stretching out his hand, “I wanna touch you!” Zolf’s never known how to turn his medium down, so he rolls his eyes and reaches out and takes Hamid’s hand in his own. Hamid smiles shyly at him. “Hello,” he mumbles.

Zolf squeezes his hand and says, “Hi, Hamid. How are you feeling?” Zolf doesn’t think he can help, but it’s the kind of question someone who knows how to talk to people would ask. Hamid puffs air through his lips like he’s thinking, and then he scoots over in his bed before tugging Zolf closer.

“I,” he says, trying and failing to drag Zolf down into bed with him, “feel like I’m high as _fuck.”_ And the matter-of-fact tone he says it in, coupled with how seriously his face is set, makes Zolf burst out laughing. Hamid laughs too, and it might be the best sound Zolf’s ever heard. “Probably because I am,” he continues, still incredibly amused, and Zolf finally lets himself be dragged. Hamid squeezes his hand, sighs happily into his shoulder, and then whispers, “Hey, Zolf.”

“Hm?”  
“Guess what?”  
“What?”  
“You love me.”  
“...yeah. I do.”  
“Zolf.”  
“Yes?”  
“Guess what?”  
 _“What,_ Hamid?”

Hamid giggles again, and then he reaches up to take Zolf’s face in his hand. “I love you too,” he says, and he’s wearing a smile so bright that he’s _blinding._

Zolf kisses him.

Just– just once, just quickly, but Hamid laughs again and tucks his face back into Zolf’s shoulder. “Grizzop’s never allowed to banish you again,” Hamid says decisively, and Zolf bites back a stupid grin, “and Azu doesn’t get to give me weird looks whenever I hold your hand.” He shifts around a bit before kissing the back of Zolf’s hand. “And I’m gonna kiss you a lot—” Zolf snorts and rolls his eyes, pretending the realisation that he can _kiss Hamid_ isn’t both extraordinary and embarrassing— “but right now, I’m going to go to sleep, because I’m _exhausted.”_

Zolf laughs again, pressing a kiss into his medium’s hair. “You do that.” Hamid makes a small, pleased noise against his shoulder, and he drifts off in Zolf’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> SEE, i TOLD you i'd fix it. feel free to send me more prompts on tumblr @roswyrm and i will try to get back to you in a timely manner!


End file.
